34
Driving into Baltimore to meet with Delegate Walker was a very different experience from driving into the same city to meet with Hadassah groups. Baltimore was one of the first Southern cities to integrate schools after Brown v. Board of Education , but housing-wise, it was still very much a segregated city. And as we neared the office she kept near Druid Hill Park when she wasn’t in Annapolis, the faces we saw on the street nearly all reflected her constituency.
“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” Stuart said mildly.
“Don’t be rude,” I said. “Druid Hill Park is lovely.”
“I’m so glad you have so much leisure time for trips to parks,” Stuart said. “But this is your harebrained idea, so let’s get back to this meeting.”
“Are you the tortoise, then? You do drive like one.”
Michael started laughing, and Stuart glared at him. We continued on in silence until Stuart parked in a spot on the street.
We got out, bringing a box of Michael’s new flyers with the headshot Marilyn’s fiancé had taken of him, when a boy, maybe ten years old, ran up to the car. “Watch your car for a quarter, mister?” he asked Stuart as Stuart locked the door.
“Why would I give you a quarter for that?”
I opened my handbag, but Michael reached into his pocket. “Here’s a dollar,” he said. “When we get back, you go buy yourself some candy and a comic book, okay?”
“Yes sir! Thank you, mister!” The boy grabbed the dollar and shoved it into his pocket, then climbed up onto the hood of the car, his back against the windshield, and crossed his arms.
“What are you giving him a dollar for?” Stuart asked as we walked away. “You don’t see any of these other cars being watched. He just assumed we were scared to be here.”
“Maybe,” Michael said. “But how often can you make someone’s day for as little as a dollar?”
Stuart shrugged, and I found myself smiling as I peeked back at the little boy. It was the same scam at Griffith Stadium when Papa used to take me to watch the Senators play. And Papa always paid up, explaining to me that he didn’t care about the car; he cared about helping others.
“What if he just spends it on candy?” I asked once.
“What he does with it once it’s in his pocket is his business,” Papa had said. “But what’s not worth much to us may be worth a lot more to others.”
I should invite Papa to the office sometime, I thought. He’d love Michael.
I glanced at Stuart, and my smile faded. Stuart would probably take it as an affront somehow.
Her office was small, above a hair salon, but Delegate Walker met us at the door herself. I recognized her because Papa had a stack of clippings I had looked through.
“You must be Mr. Landau,” she said, addressing Michael.
“Delegate Walker,” I said, making sure he didn’t mistake her for a secretary. She was in her fifties, according to the newspaper articles, but looked much younger, with straightened hair and red lipstick. “Thank you so much for meeting with us. I’m Beverly Gelman Diamond—you spoke with my father last week.”
She looked me over sternly, nodding her approval as she reached my shoes. She had been a teacher and still commanded that air of not accepting failure in any form. “Won’t you come in?” she asked.
A secretary sat at a desk in the corner, a phone receiver held to her ear, typing as she listened, a lit cigarette smoldering in the ashtray in front of her.
Delegate Walker led us to a desk in the opposite corner and moved to pull a third chair to the visitor side, but Michael took it himself, which she noted with a nod.
“You’re younger than I expected,” she said to Michael. “That picture in the Washington Post didn’t do you any favors.”
“No, ma’am, it did not,” I agreed, pulling one of Michael’s flyers from the box and setting it on her desk. “That’s why we got new ones taken a few weeks ago.”
“A much better likeness,” she said. “I think I know why you’re here, but why don’t you tell me anyway?” She spoke with a hint of a Southern accent that revealed her Georgia birth, but the thirty years she had spent in Baltimore were evident in her voice as well.
“Mrs.—Delegate Walker,” Michael said, and I wanted to kick him. We’d gone over this at least a dozen times. She raised an eyebrow at the correction but said nothing. “We’re here today to ask for your help.”
“Not much good typically comes from a white man showing up here to ask for help,” she said smoothly. “But let’s see what I can do.”
Michael paused a moment, flummoxed, and I moved my foot slightly. A kick would be unprofessional though, so I crossed one ankle behind the other. Then he took a deep breath and continued. “Can I be honest?” She nodded. “I’m a little nervous. You’ve got a much more impressive résumé than I do.”
Delegate Walker laughed, a hearty sound that disarmed even Stuart.
“I mean it,” he said. “Suing the city over the civic center was a huge gamble.”
“And an even bigger victory,” she said. “But I know my record. I don’t need you to flatter me. Why are you here?”
Michael nodded. “I’m running for the US Senate. And as things sit right now, I’m going to lose to Sam Gibson.”
Delegate Walker’s nostrils flared slightly, but that was the only hint that she wasn’t a fan.
“We’re working hard to make that not the case,” he continued. “And we’re focusing strongly on underrepresented populations.”
She nodded. “I heard you’ve been making the rounds at women’s luncheons.”
“We have. And we’ve had a lot of success there. But I don’t want it to be close. And to do that, we need your support.”
Her posture was ramrod straight in her high-backed chair, hands folded in her lap with a studied lack of motion. Not a stray blink betrayed her reception of this statement.
And for a full minute, she said nothing.
“Let me see if I understand this correctly: you want me to tell my constituents in Baltimore to vote for one white man from Montgomery County over another white man from Montgomery County. Is that right?”
Stuart’s shoulders dropped, but Michael’s didn’t change.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She leaned forward slightly. “I’ll be very honest with you. Sam Gibson hasn’t done anything for us. He may have signed off on the Civil Rights Act two years ago, but I’ve got a long memory, and I don’t forget a filibuster on something that important. But from where I sit, I haven’t yet seen how you’ll be any different.”
Michael leaned in as well, and though I could only see his profile, I could tell he was impressed by her bringing up that filibuster. “He and I may share a race and a gender, but that’s where the similarities end,” Michael said earnestly. “That filibuster was sickening. The reason I’m here today, instead of just campaigning in white neighborhoods, is because I want to represent all of Maryland. Not just the people whom the Founders thought mattered. You said you didn’t see how we’ll be different, but has Sam Gibson made an appointment to see you? Do you think he’s even read up on what you’ve accomplished up here?”
“That man wouldn’t set foot on this side of town,” she agreed.
“No. And he wouldn’t ask women to support him either. Much less women of color. He’s great at kissing babies and charming those mothers, but his focus is on himself, not bettering the lives of his constituents.”
“And yours is?”
I adored her. If it wouldn’t take me more than an hour to get to work each day in a car I didn’t have, I would have switched campaigns.
“Yes,” Michael said simply. “I believe holding office is an act of public service.”
“Whereas most people who run for political office like power,” she said. Her head turned in my direction. “Your father was one of the few exceptions, which is why I took this meeting.”
“He speaks very highly of you,” I said.
“I was surprised he remembered me. I only met him once, before I was in the House.”
“Yes, but he started in the state House too. And he’s been following your career.”
She smiled, her eyes turning down at the corners. “They don’t make them like him anymore.”
I thought about Larry. “No, ma’am, they do not.” Then I realized Michael was watching me with an amused smile. “But Michael here is—”
“No Bernie Gelman,” he cut me off smoothly, saving me the embarrassment of trying to figure out how to end that sentence. “You’re not wrong about politicians wanting power. It’s why I picked the Senate over the House.” She tilted her head, listening as he continued. “The Senate was designed to make voting more fair, and a lot of the time it does the opposite.” Delegate Walker nodded. Michael glanced at me, but I was lost.
“How are you going to fix that?” she asked.
“I can’t,” he admitted. “Not without tearing down all of Congress, and I don’t think I have the power to do that. But I can make a difference from inside. Especially for the people the system hurts.”
“It’s an uphill battle,” Delegate Walker said. “That’s for sure.”
“It is,” Michael said. “But you know better than anyone that you won’t get anywhere if you don’t try.”
She gazed out the window over our heads for what felt like several minutes, though I doubted it was really that long. Then she turned her sharp eyes back on Michael. “And what do I get in return for my support?”
I held my breath. If he gave the wrong answer, we would be politely but firmly shown the door.
“My ear,” he said. “I can’t promise that I know what your constituents need. But I want to. And I’m not so arrogant to think that I can blindly make decisions that will benefit people with experiences that are different from mine.” He looked at me sideways and smiled. “That’s why Beverly is here. She came barreling into my office and announced I was going to hire her as my new campaign manager.” Stuart sat up a little straighter. “And yes, I liked the idea of having Bernie Gelman’s daughter on staff. But Bev hasn’t been wrong—about anything really. Women, historically, haven’t voted in large numbers. But they should. And your community is the same.”
“Congress has made it a lot harder for my people to vote,” she said. “Bernie helped, but there’s a lot of work to be done still.”
“And there’s only so much one man can do,” Michael said. “I know that. But I want to work toward it. And I promise you, Delegate, that if you help me get elected, I will listen to you as well as I’ve listened to Bev here.”
She looked out the window again, then stood up. The three of us followed suit, but she waved Michael and Stuart back down. “You two sit. I’d like to have a word with Beverly here.” She gestured for me to follow her, and I did, out of the office, down a flight of stairs, and onto the street. “Let’s walk around the block,” she said.
I matched her steps but felt a bead of sweat forming at the back of my dress that had nothing to do with the oppressive heat.
“Is it true what he said?” she asked.
“Which part?”
“The storming into his office demanding to run his campaign part.”
I grinned sheepishly. “It is.”
“Why?” she looked at me. “The truth now.”
“My husband is Sam Gibson’s campaign manager,” I said. “I caught him with his secretary, and he threatened to sell the house.”
“He can’t do that.”
“I know that now. But I wanted to get back at him.”
She took this in, then stopped to greet a young man sitting on the corner by name.
“What about what he said about listening to you?”
I nodded. “All true. Even when he disagreed.”
“Then he’s genuine?”
“He is,” I said slowly, realizing that I meant it. I told her about Stuart changing my speech and Michael pivoting to adjust to what I had said.
“Interesting.”
“Delegate Walker—”
“Helen,” she said.
I hesitated, the urge to refrain from using my elder’s first name as a sign of respect battling with the show of respect involved in doing what she asked. “Helen,” I said finally. “Do you remember that scandal that took down Sam Gibson’s opponent six years ago?”
She nodded. “I believe I do.”
“My lawyer—I’m not supposed to repeat this, but my lawyer thinks they fabricated that. To win.”
Helen peered at me carefully. “Haven’t you been around politics your whole life? You sound surprised. Of course he made that up.”
“That wasn’t the kind of campaign my father ran.”
“No,” she said. “But if you bring that up to him, I’d wager he has the same reaction I did.”
“That may be true. Maybe he shielded me from how ugly campaigns were. But Sam cannot win again.”
“Because of your husband? What happens to you when he’s out of a job?”
Larry had said that, but then I was so focused on keeping the kids that I hadn’t processed it. Larry would have to get another job. The courts would require he support me and the kids. But we could lose the house—not out of Larry’s spite, but because of my own.
I didn’t reply for the full length of the block as I thought about what that could mean.
While I pondered this, Helen stopped to scold a boy who was sitting on the hood of a car.
“Julian Barnes, you get down from that car right now, or I will tell your mama that you’re scamming people out of quarters again.”
This shook me from my ruminations as I realized she was speaking to the boy sitting on Stuart’s car.
He hopped down immediately. “Aw, Miss Helen, I didn’t mean no harm.”
“That man paid you?”
He glanced around furtively to see if Michael was anywhere in sight. “Yes, ma’am.”
“How much?”
“Miss Helen—”
“I asked you a question.”
“A dollar.”
She nodded, biting her lip slightly.
“You ain’t gonna make me give it back, are you?”
“Say ain’t again and I might,” she said. “But I think you’d better figure out a way to earn it.”
“Earn it?” he squeaked.
“That windshield is looking mighty smudged. Like a boy’s been sitting on it.”
“I’ll clean it, Miss Helen, I promise!”
She patted his head. “That’s what I like to hear. Go on and run down to the gas station for a rag. We’ll stay here while you’re gone.”
“Yes, Miss Helen,” he said, taking off at full speed.
She chuckled as he disappeared down the block. “I was a schoolteacher for eleven years,” she said.
“Oh, I can tell,” I said, finally smiling again. “Listen—I’ll land on my feet. But this election is more important than what happens to me.”
“And you think this Michael Landau will do what he says?”
I nodded. “And if he doesn’t, he’ll have both of us to deal with.”
She let out another hearty laugh. “Yes. I can see where that would be formidable. Let’s go tell him I’ll work with him after all.”